The devil's visit to "Old Abe."
by Rev. E. P. Birch, of La Grange, Ga.
Written on the occasion of Lincoln's Proclamation for Prayer and fasting after the battle of Manassas Revised and improved expressly for La Grange Reporter, by the author.
‘ Old Abe was sitting in his chair of State,
With one foot on the mantle and one on the grate,
Now smoking his pipe, and then scratching his spate;
For he had heard some disastrous news of late,
As fearful as death and as cruel as fate;
In an old earthen leg on a table near by,
Was a gallon of ‘"Back eye, or "’ Choice ‘"Old Eye,"’
To cheer up his hopes, which were ready to die,
Under whose potent charms old Abe would be able
To lay all his grief, like a bill, ‘"on the table,"’
Or, shut up his wo-like a horse, in a stable.
He sat in his chair,
With a wo-begone air,
Gazing at nothing with a meaningless stare,
And looked like a wild beast just ‘"ered"’ in his lair,
His cheek-bones were high, and his visage was rough,
Like a middling of bacon — ill wrinkled and tough,
His noses was as long, and as ugly and big,
As the snout of a half ed illinois pig,
He was long in the legs, and long in the face,
A Longfellow born of a long-legged race,
Yet longing thro' grace, for a much longer space,
Till he'd finished his political wild goose chase--
Bringing wreck on his country; and endless disgrace,
On the blockheads who'd placed him in ‘"the very wrong place."’
The news had just reached him of rent and defeat,
Of his ‘"Grand Army"’ broken — of disastrous retreat;
His best men were slain on the field of the fight;
His legions were scattered with panic and fight,
And his plans had all met with a ruinous blight;
His treasury was bankrupt, his finances smashed;
His credit was gone, and his hill, were uncashed;
His country with terrible foes slid begirt,
Was tumbling to ruin like a fabric of dirt;
‘"I'm afraid,"’ said Old Abe, ‘"there's somebody hurt."’
Thus sitting and thinking--
' Twas smoking and drinking--
His head on his bosom was gradually sinking--
When a sound met his ear--
So sharp and no clear,
That he sprang to his feel — standing breathless to hear,
With his mind full of dread, and his heart full of fear,
' Twas not like the roll of the hurricane's thunder,
Nor the earthquake that cleaves the tall mountains asunder;
' Twas not like the storms which tumultuously sweep
O'er the done bending woods and the dark rolling deep;
But a sharp, angry crashing
A confusion and clashing,
Like things in general, promiscuously smashing,
‘" It's the Devil !"’ thought Abe, in the sorest of frights,
Or a rebel ‘"masked battery"’ on ‘"Arling' on Heights"’
On the wings of the midnight winds it flew,
And nearer it came and louder it grew,
' Till Washington City seemed all in a stew,
It paused just before
The ‘"White House"’ door,
And then died away with an explosive roar,
‘"It's the Devil !"’ said Lincoln; and sure he's right,
For just at that moment there gleamed on his sight
The glare of a horrible sulphurous light,
Entitling a form so ghastly and grim,
That his heart ceased to beat, and his eyes grew dim,
That form stood before him, majestic and dread,
With large cloven feet, and huge horns on his head,
Mr. Lincoln was seized with a terrible quaking,
And the bones in his skin were rattling and shaking,
Like the ‘"dry bones"’ in the ‘"valley of Vision,"’
With such a dreadful collision,
As threatened to make a ‘"long division"’
Of his body and members, without ‘"legal decision."’
‘"How's your health, Mr. Lincoln?"’ said old nick with a grin;
‘"I have only stepped in"’
To renew old acquaintance with your honor again,
How are Seward, and Scott, and good Mrs. L?
‘"I hope all your friends are still hearty and well."’
Thus saying, he seated himself in a chair
And gaze at Old Abe with an impudent stare;
Took a drink of ‘"hot lead,"’ from a flaming skyrocket,
Which he drew from the depths of his overcoat pocket;
Consulted his watch with a dandyish grace,
Said he'd made a quick trip thro' the regions of space,
On the train of a comet, in a journey sublime,
Over millions of miles in a moment of time.
‘"You yourself,"’ said the fiend, with a wink of his eye
‘"Can travel 'like blazes,' when danger is nigh."’
Your Grand Army, too, are distinguished for speed,
And run, 'like the devil,' in cases of need,
But all this aside — allow me to state:
I have come here on business momentously great,
Which deeply involves your political fate,
What means, Mr. Lincoln, this strange proclamation,
In which you've invited the whole Yankee nation
To fasting and prayer, and to humiliation?
It is strange how a threshing has altered your notions
And called into action your pious devotions;
It seems to me, sir, you're a whimsical set,
Ever twisting and turning, like an eel in a net,
You flounder and flout,
And turn in and turn out,
' Till my wits are puzzled to know what you're about,
And now in all candor, I must call your attention
To the truths which at present you'll allow me to mention.
You know, in the first place, you owe your election,
To the aid and protection
Of a demagogue crew who own my direction.
I invented your platform, and gave ialate,
About 'niggers,' and 'freedom,' and the great 'higher law,'
From the top of this platform — outstretching below,
I showed you the kingdoms which I would be stow,
If you and your party would only agree
To fall down in worship and homage to me;
Obey my directions, fulfill my commands,
Spread carnage and death over all these, lands,
By a horrible warfare, such as would win
Success to my cause, and a triumph to sin
To all of these terms you most promptly agreed,
And made them your grounds of political creed,
I gave you my subjects — the best I have got,
Such as Cameron, and Seward, and ‘"Old Granny Scott;"’
Assisted by Greeley, and Bennett, and Weed,
As miserable scoundrels as Tophet could breed,
To fix up a plan for ‘"preserving the Union,"’
In the bonds of a happy fraternal communion,
By a terrible warfare of conquest and blood,
Such as never was known since the day of the flood,
I gave you my minions from the purlieus of hell,
The ranks of your fearful grand Army to swell;
I stirred up the North with its vagabond crew,
And set witch burning Yankeedom all in a stew,
With its lame and schisms — fanatical trappings--
Its free loving humbugs, and spiritual wrappings;
I called out its teachers,
(Hypocritical preachers)
And demagogue screeners,
To marshal your legions to conquest and fame;
But a ! to your shame,
No victory came,
But reproach and disgrace on the whole Yankee name,
Your armies went forth, but not to the battle--
They went forth to plunder the fields of their cattle;
To steal the young chickens and capture the hens,
(Like ‘"William Come-Trimble-Toe,"’) and put' ia yens.
In the pages of history, no loftier place
Can be claimed for your thieving and cowardly race,
Than to tell they were va t in stealing a hen,
But ran in confusion from the presences of man,
When at last your Grand Army was forced to a fight,
They were routed, defeated, and driven in flight,
Overwhelmed with confusion from the plains of Manassas,
Like a miserable pack of terrified a s
Wasn't for this that I labored with vigilant toil,
To now fares of contention all over your sol ?--
To build up your party with lying pretensions,
With demagogue tricks and Chicago Conventions?
If this is the fruit of my labor and zeal,
I am sure I deserve the remorse that I feel,
For becoming the tool
Of a shallow-brained fool,
With the form of an ape and the head of a calf,
It is sowing the whirlwind and rasping the chaff,
‘"What say you to this?"’ cried Old Nick, waving hot;
Quoth President Dinesin, ‘"You must ask Gen. Scott"’
‘"Old Scott's an old and Seward to boot;"’
And at for yourself, you're a pitiful brute,
Too mean to let live, and too worthless to shoot.
‘"But, to come to the point more directly in hand,"’
Allow me once more in good faith to demand
The grounds of this pitiful vile proclamation,
For fasting and prayer by the whole Yankee nation,
Do you think that Jehovah will favor your cause,
While you murder, and steal, and v g e laws?
Will your prayers be heard when you ask the Eternal,
For help to accomplish your objects internal,
No, this war, like yourself, was begotten in sin,
And lose it or win,
--You must now begin,
To fight with the spirit of Seventy-Six,
‘"And abandon your pitiful Yankee tricks,"’
Quoth ‘"house Old Abe,"’ ‘"I'm in a very bad fix."’
‘"You are right, now, for once,"’ said old Nick with a grin,
But such are the fruits of transgression and sins
Then where lion the blamed.
Not with me, I am sure,
‘"You made the dictate: you must reek for the cute,"’
And now, in conclusion, your attention I call
To a single fact mere--'tis the saddest of all;
(As he spoke the hot tears came flush to his eyes,)
The Gospel has made me 'the father of lies'--
And the record is true.
From the very beginning,
I have tutored the world in lying and sinning;
But it sti up my soul with grief and vexation,
To see your minable Yankee nation,
Outstripping me far in the depths of its shame,
And heaping reproach on my kingdom and name,
‘"I've one word to add; it's a terrible one !"’
The race of your treachery is almost run;
Your political sky looks dark and dun;
The rate-clouds are gathering o'er your setting sun;
You have ruined your nation — degraded its name--
And harried on its people a heritage of shame;
You have murdered its glory and pride at a blow,
And filled its proud cities with walling and woe,
The avenger is coming.
O'er your dark future path,
Is brooding a storm of terrible wrath,
The wrongs of oppression, the blood of the slain,
The pleadings of widows for their lost ones again,
The cries of the poor, all starving for bread
The curse of the nation, overwhelming with dread,
Shall break like an avalanche full on your head,
Then woe to the day when Beauregard comes
With his fiery legions from their Southern homes;
When the roar of their guns shall fill you with fright,
And the flash of their sabres shall gleam on your right.
Ah! then shall you sink to a merciless tomb,
And the shouts of their triumph shall herald your doom,
Your fate is now writ by the 'hand on the wall;'
O'er your 'house on the sand' the bleak tempest shall fail,
And sweep you away in its ruins to hell--
‘"I have finished my mission, farewell ! Farewell !"’
Thus saying, he left in a moment of time,
And wound up his speech, where I wind up my rhyme;
He left General Scott in a passion any worry--
Old Abe in a fit, and his wife in a flurry.
’
